


Lunacy

by LegendaryBard



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Mystery, golden era
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-21 23:05:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14295402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LegendaryBard/pseuds/LegendaryBard
Summary: They haven't had contact with Horizon Lunar Colony in years.Looks like it didn't last.





	1. Routine

Jack Morrison wakes up.

Not, altogether, something to call the press about.

He doesn’t immediately feel like getting out of bed, but if he doesn’t-

“Strike-Commander, Strike-Commander,” A tiny voice chimes from his nightstand. Female, soft, robotic. BETSY, a dummy AI that serves as his personal assistant and timekeeper. “Wake up, sir!”

“I’m awake already.” He grinds out.

His room is spacious- soft, carpeted floors, a plush, king-sized bed. Volumes of bookshelves, tablets galore, and an entire wall dedicated to sixteen different holo-screens. There’s a walk-in closet, a luxurious and unnecessarily large bathroom, and a huge window that overlooks the Swiss countryside, made out of reinforced glass that hadn’t so much as splintered the time he and Gabriel shot at it for fun. The place is far cry from the cramped, spidery attic he’d grown up in, but he feels at home in both.

The window tells him that it’s just barely dawn; there’s the faintest hint of a weak grey glow behind the curtains.

“It’s early, BETSY. Before I’m scheduled to wake up.” He turns on his side, away from the slim screen that houses her AI. “What’s so urgent?”

“In Gibraltar, sir, there was an incident ten minutes ago…”

“An incident?” He sits up, rubbing his bleary eyes. “What do you mean, an _incident?”_

“The reports are very uncertain, sir, but there’s someone here who wants to talk to you, very urgently…”

Jack groans. “Put them on hold for _two_ minutes, I need to get dressed. Ping Commander Reyes-”

“I am informing him of this as we speak,” BETSY replies, chipper.

“Great. Tell him to grab some coffee and meet me here.”

“Shall I disable my protocol when he arrives, like with your last meeting?”

Jack’s ears heat. “No, no, that won’t be necessary.”

Their last meeting comes back in a warm, tingling rush- Gabriel had done such amazing _things_ with his mouth-

He clears his throat. “Just tell him to be here, BETSY.”

“Yes, sir,” She intones. The cheerful yellow glow on her monitor winks out.

Jack crawls reluctantly out of bed, peeling off the T-shirt and boxers he sleeps in. He pads into the closet ( the floor is cold underfoot, so much so that he winces when he sets his feet off of the carpet ) and plucks his duster from its steadfast spot on the hanger closest to the closet door.

Goosebumps erupt on his skin. Switzerland is _cold_ , and he forgot to tell BETSY last night to heat the room in preparation for the freezing morning to come. Too late now.

He throws on a dark blue shirt ( his entire closet is a veritable _sea_ of blue- navy, indigo, periwinkle, royal, robin’s egg, powder, azure, aquamarine, sapphire, turquoise, it _never ended )_ and a pair of toughened camo pants. His boots go on next, then his armor, then his coat.

“Makeup and hair, sir?” BETSY, who was thus far quiet, pipes up when he heads to his desk.

He runs his fingers through his golden locks, then thumbs his stubbly jawline. Bedhead. Five o’ clock shadow. Bags and wrinkles. The Strike-Commander has a look to uphold.

He sighs.

“Tell Reyes to hold off for five minutes.”

BETSY hums for half a second. “He would like to let you know that he hates you and thinks you’re vain.”

“Tell him that he should spend more time in the mirror every morning to do something about his entire ugly face.” Jack heads for the bathroom.

He has an assistant- Swiss, brown hair, mousy- who does makeup for him whenever he has to go to genuine conferences or events, but he’s skilled enough with the brush to passably tend to his wrinkles and eye bags.

First, a shave.

Then hair; combing it out, styling it with the lightest application of gel. Cosmetics can get the worst of his wrinkles, covers up the darkened hollows of his eyes. He brushes his teeth, applies aftershave, grooms himself until he’s presentable as the larger-than-life Strike-Commander. When this shit first came about- when he was first promoted- he felt like a prized dog. The barrage of attention, insistence on makeup, and focus on maintaining flawless good looks was demeaning, insulting, possibly even feminizing.

Now? It’s just part of the routine. It’s something he _does,_ the same way millions of mothers, teenage girls, celebrities, and politicians do.

“Reyes is waiting for you,” BETSY informs him with a chirrup. “He says that he’ll dump your coffee on the floor if you keep him waiting much longer.”

“Tell him to go straight to hell.” Jack replies, studying himself in the mirror.

Yup, that’ll do.

“Open the door for him, BETSY.” Jack dries off his hands on a nearby towel, ambling back into his room. He makes up the bed, just for something to do, and pays the heavy footsteps moving towards him very little heed.

“Okay, so what is all this bullshit?” Reyes sounds annoyed.

“No idea,” Jack glances up to look at him.

The commander of Blackwatch looks exhausted. Surly, although that’s not a change from usual. Dark bags under his eyes that he doesn’t have to hide. A scruffy beard he doesn’t have to shave. A hoodie, jeans, a beanie, a raggedy sort of casualness that reminds him of an alleycat, spitting and biting and unafraid of anyone or anything.

Jack feels a stab of envy run through him. Gabriel must see a flicker of _something_ cross his face, because he offers out a steaming coffee mug.

“Your sugary disaster, Mr. Strike-Commander.”

“This is the _only_ thing I get to cheat on,” Jack says, taking the mug with a greediness that he’ll later deny. His freezing fingers leech the warmth from the mug and he makes a mental note to give Gabriel a raise or a gift basket or _something-_ Maybe returning the favor from a few nights ago and showing him just how skillful Jack can be with _his_ mouth. “Leave me alone.”

Gabriel snorts. “You know, you don’t _have_ to adhere to that crap. I’m pretty sure you’re not gonna lose these rock hard abs-” His knuckles brush Jack’s abdomen and Jack twitches despite himself. “- If you eat a piece of cake once in awhile.”

“And have my nutritionist and makeup artist and personal assistants nag me about it?” Jack scoffs.

“You have a fucking nutritionist? Jesus Christ.”

“That’s my cross, Gabriel.” He takes a sip and can’t stop himself from _groaning,_ because sweet Jesus that’s _good._ Sugar and caffeine and cream, all the things that’ve been brutally slashed out of his calorie intake. It’s all lean meats and leafy greens and organic grains now.

“You look like you’re about to start crying.” Gabriel shakes his head, admonishing. “How do you live like this?”

“I don’t,” Jack says hoarsely. “I died a long time ago.”

“Well, pull yourself out of the grave, Strike-Commander, we’ve got a situation.” Gabriel takes a pull from his own mug, padding over to BETSY’s holo-display. “Send the transmission through, we’re as ready as we’re gonna get.”

“Understood, sir.”

The holo-projection crops up. Captain Amari looks back at him; somewhere outside, near a sandy-colored rocky outcropping.

“Jack? Gabriel?” She asks, her eyes darting between them. “You’re not going to believe this.”

=

Gabriel wakes up to the obnoxious fucking sound of Jack’s stupid dummy AI, BETSY, chirping at him.

“Commander Reyes! Sir!” She cheeps irritatingly. “Wake up, please, wake up!”

“Shut up,” He throws a pillow at her, but it does nothing but phase through her screen and hit a nearby wall.

“Sir, it’s urgent.” BETSY intones. “This came out for you and Strike-Commander Morrison a few minutes ago.”

Strike-Commander Morrison? So Jack’s awake, too, huh?

That made him feel just a little bit better. He reluctantly drags his eyes to her.

“What’s going on?”

“There’s an incoming call from Gibraltar. Some event has transpired, but the caller asked to speak to you and Strike-Commander Morrison in specific, and refused to relay a message. She sounded quite anxious to have you.”

“Fuck, fine.”

He shoves his blanket off him, gets up. The base’s cold- part of Switzerland’s endless amounts of charm- but his room is subterranean, and therefore, slightly warmer than, say, the fucking condo Jack’s got right near the roof. He wore socks to bed, anticipating the cold laminate floor underfoot, and he ambles to his closet.

“Commander Morrison is asking for you,” BETSY says suddenly. “He requests you bring coffee.”

“Bitch can’t do it himself?” Gabriel mutters. “Or get an intern to do it for him?”

“Likely everyone else on-base is asleep,” BETSY informs him.

Part of the ‘dummy’ in ‘dummy AI’ came from an inability to provide snappy banter or comebacks. Gabriel vastly preferred talking to people over the brainless, preprogrammed shells that bothered him at every Watchpoint.

He throws on a black t-shirt in his little closet, then a grey hoodie because it’s _cold,_ then jeans, then boots. He straps himself up with armor because he doesn’t feel _dressed_ unless he’s got armor on ( how sad is that? ) and snatches his stalwart beanie from his nightstand, setting it in its rightful place on his head.

His room is small. Spartan. Not much more luxurious than your run of the mill Blackwatch recruit’s, except he’s got his own private bathroom and a closet. Still nowhere near as good as _Jack’s-_ he could easily fit five of his room in the Strike-Commander’s.

He leaves his room, locks his door. He leaves BETSY’s intolerable nagging behind.

He would head for the kitchens to get their caffeine fix, but the place is _huge._ The Swiss base has hundreds of people in it and the kitchens are a labyrinth of shelves, islands, stoves, and fuck knew what else.

He heads for one of the break rooms, where he _knows_ they keep a good stock of coffee. Everyone on base is running on it, except for a precious and awe-inspiring few.

BETSY had mentioned it was urgent, so he pokes around some shelves to find instant coffee instead of waiting for a pot.

He finds a jar after enough rummaging. He taps out a small amount into two cups, runs water in both of them. One of them he adds three spoons of cream into, then taps in five sugar packets. He stirs the saccharine mess until the last of the sugar and coffee granules are gone.

This is Jack’s abomination. He takes horribly sweet and creamy coffee, to the point where it’s essentially milk and sugar with coffee flavoring. Gabriel, personally, is a purist. No cream, minimal sugar, as it was intended to be.

Gabriel rips open a single sweetener packet and swirls it into his coffee. He stirs it, takes a sip. Bitter and black, the way it’s supposed to be. Also _cold,_ because he’d neglected a very important step.

Three minutes later, after the coffee’s heated, he gets ready to head for Jack’s room.

“Commander Reyes,” BETSY chirps softly from the break room’s intercom speakers, “Strike-Commander Morrison asks that you wait five minutes to give him some time to look presentable.”

“Tell him I hate him and I think he’s vain.”

“Okay, sir.”

She probably _is_ going to relay his message; that’s the worst part.

“Strike-Commander Morrison says you should spend more time in the mirror every morning to do something about your entire ugly face.”

Dummy AI indeed.

He tosses the packets of sugar and stirring sticks in the trash, then heads for the nearest elevator. It’ll be at least a five minute walk to Jack’s room; the Swiss base was not exactly small.

He steps in the elevator; a young, sleepy-looking man- Overwatch, not Blackwatch- is already inside. He snaps into an instinctive salute upon spotting the Blackwatch commander, eyes firmly above Gabriel instead of on his face.

“At ease.”

“Sir.” He relaxes, although there’s a line of tension in his spine. He hovers uncertainly for a second, then steps back, allowing Gabriel to go where he wanted first. Gabriel punches in the number for Jack’s floor, and the young man timidly hits the number for the story the infirmary is on.  

There’s a painful youth to the kid’s face; seventeen is the youngest you can _legally_ draft them in, and that’s with parental consent. However, there are some exceptions- Jesse was just barely sixteen when Gabriel picked him up, and it wouldn’t be unheard of for the clever shitlets who _really_ wanted to join Overwatch to fake their ages. They’d recently had to boot out a sixteen year old tech genius who purposely fudged her birthdate to try to get into Overwatch earlier. She had been graciously offered a spot when she turned eighteen.

Before Gabriel can press him with “how old are you?” the elevator door opens and the kid moves out in a hurry.

Warrants investigation, but maybe not right now.

He reaches Jack’s floor, takes a sip from his mug, and takes the trek to the Strike-Commander’s room.

He gets to Jack’s door; there’s a keypad and a little speaker for BETSY.

“Let me in,” He barks at her.

“The Strike-Commander is busy at the moment! May I take a message?”

“Yeah, tell him that I’ll dump his coffee on the floor if he keeps me waiting much longer.”

“Message relayed, sir. He would like me to tell you that you can ‘go straight to hell’.” BETSY relays pleasantly.

Gabriel rolls his eyes.

He taps his foot impatiently and is kept waiting for another twenty or so seconds; then the door slides open with a hydraulic hiss.

Strike-Commander Morrison is fussing over his bed, attempting to tame his tangled sheets and get them back into pristine order. Heaven forbid that someone should think he _slept_ like some kind of mortal peasant.  

“Okay, so what is all this bullshit?” Gabriel asks.

“No idea,” Jack replies honestly. He stops looking at his bedspread for a second to look up at him.

The Strike-Commander’s touched up, the vain little prick. But Gabriel knows the bags and wrinkles of his face like he knows his own. Jack’s hair is slicked up with the slightest hint of gel, and Gabriel’s struck with the childish urge to swat it down.

Jack’s weary smile flickers downward for a second, just enough for Gabriel think that maybe Jack can read his mind and is disapproving of his thoughts.

He shoves Jack’s cup of coffee at him to deter any further potential mind reading.

“Your sugary disaster, Mr. Strike-Commander.”

They banter. It’s been a long time since he had time to just _banter_ with Jack; the Strike-Commander’s often _busy_ with reports, and Gabriel’s busy with his own men. Keeping his Blackwatch crew in line is like herding cats.

If he hears about Gonzalez harassing Overwatch agents again, he’s going to rip his hair out and Gonzalez’s testicles off. It’s goddamn amazing how a little rivalry will turn a thirty-five year old man into a schoolyard bully.

“Send the transmission through,” Gabriel gestures at BETSY’s monitor dismissively. “We’re as ready as we’re gonna get.”

“Understood, sir,” BETSY chimes.

The dummy AI projects a holo-screen. Ana Amari’s face swims into view. Swooping tattoo, dark skin, spiffy captain’s hat. Gibraltar has been treating her well; she looks younger than him and Jack, although she’s a couple years their senior. She’s practically glowing.

Her rejuvenated look is somewhat tainted by her worried expression.

“Jack? Gabriel?” She says, her dark eyes serious. “You’re not going to believe this.”

=

Ana woke up early.

Under no circumstances would she purposely wake up early; after having a baby she had learned to appreciate the ability to sleep past five AM.

But the cause of her waking up- a crash that sounded almost identical to being _shelled-_ convinced her to awaken before the sun. In a blink, she had her rifle in hand from where it was propped up against her nightstand, and clothes on in half a second. Ana was out the door in a flash, sprinting towards Reinhardt’s room.

She runs into him on her way; his first instinct had been to run to _her_ room, which under any other circumstance would be enormously flattering.

He’s in his armor, still affixing his helmet when they spot one another.

“Ana! You’re safe!”

“I may be safe, but that doesn’t mean we’re in the clear. What on _Earth_ was that sound?”

“I do not know,” Reinhardt admits. “But stay behind me, my lady. I will keep my shield up, and you can watch my back.”

“Understood.”

She drops into a crouch and the two of them ascend to a higher point of Gibraltar. At some point they attract a few half-dressed, barely-awoken Overwatch agents, who follow behind them with twitchy trigger fingers and a combination of armor and sleepwear. There’s only two dozen people at Gibraltar, and if someone is attacking, they don’t have the firepower to beat back a significant force or a sheltered place to wait it out.

They reach the peak of the cliffs, overlooking the abandoned city of Gibraltar. It was abandoned in the early days of the Crisis, then retaken by Overwatch not long after as a location for a military Watchpoint. There were now-defunct omniums just across the Mediterranean Sea that needed an eye kept on them. Just in case.

Very few civilians had returned to Gibraltar, and none had opted to stay for long. The inhabitants were either killed in the Crisis or, in the time between leaving and reclaiming Gibraltar, had set up somewhere else. The city was choked with omnic corpses and skeletons, desolate and abandoned. Ana didn’t like going there very much, and Reinhardt didn’t, either. He looked around at the stillness, the silence, the _humanity_ that was being rapidly overtaken by flora and fauna, and said it was too much like Eichenwalde for him to stay long.

A huge trail had been cut through swaths of trees nearby the city; like a giant fist had been plowed through the ground. Whatever had caused it had snapped logs like twigs and left small paths of fire and seared, pulverized dirt in its wake.

Reinhardt snuffs out the flames with his foot as they go.

When they reach the end of the trail, there is a ship that lays delicately in the dirt. It’s more of a small pod than a ship, slightly cone-shaped, with a rounded top.

“We need to… Call Jack,” Ana’s voice is numb. No one moves, and she whirls around to the twenty-two agents behind her. “One of you brought a holo-projector and a screen. Give it here, we need to call the Strike-Commander. Jack and Gabriel… They’re not going to _believe_ this.”

 

 


	2. Crash Landing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Horizon Lunar Colony sends its regards, and one of its best.

“That’s… Hard to believe.” The Strike-Commander looks  _ doubtful  _ of her story, at best.

“What else would  _ you  _ call it, Jack?” 

“Are you sure it’s extraterrestrial?” Jack tries stubbornly. “It looks manmade. Maybe it’s just a crashed airship…” 

Ana groans. “We’ll learn when it opens.” 

“I, for one, am all for space aliens.” Gabriel drawls. “After the robots gave up it’s been boring without a war.” 

Jack elbows him in the ribs reproachfully. If anything, Gabriel’s smug little grin widens. 

“Miss Amari!” Reinhardt interjects sharply. His shield is still raised, sheltering a cluster of wary Overwatch agents from the potential alien menace contained in the crashed space pod. “I believe it’s opening!” 

“Opening?” Ana pauses. “Jack, Gabriel, I’ll call you back-” 

“Hell no! I wanna see this, keep your camera on!” Gabriel crows. 

The small, conical pod lets out a hydraulic hiss; pistons push the capsule’s door open. 

Inside is the last thing that Ana expected to find. 

A gorilla. 

The only thing that comes to mind is that it’s wearing glasses. Tiny, square, black glasses, that barely manage to stay up on the slope of its simian nose. It’s wearing some kind of suit- evocative of astronaut gear, but tougher, more armored- complete with a cracked glass helmet. The gorilla limps a step forward, keeping an iron grip on the door of its pod.

Yellow eyes scan the series of agents; they linger on Reinhardt, then come to rest on Ana.

“Help,” The gorilla croaks, then collapses. 

=

After that, it’s a buzz of activity.

“Get me a medic!” Ana demands. “Or- a veterinarian-?” 

Awed Overwatch agents draw timidly closer to the gorilla. Several pairs of hands waver over its form; trying to figure out if they should touch it, if it’s been injured. Ana’s not exactly a medic herself, but she approaches, too. 

Her initial assessment appeared to be correct. It’s a gorilla. Raven-black fur, definedly knuckled hands, a burly body with small hind legs. It’s collapsed over the edge of the pod, limbs sprawled and cracked helmet pressed against the capsule door. 

One of the agents tentatively removes the helmet. The gorilla doesn’t stir, its cheek now pressed to the metal exit hatch. It almost looks like it’s sleeping.  

“Space gorillas!” One of the milling agents bursts out unexpectedly, looking wildly from person to person. “Friggin’ space gorillas! What the goddamn hell!” 

An eruption of chatter comes from the anxious agents- all throwing frantic speculation and similar exclamations of surprise. 

“It could talk! That space gorilla could talk!” One of the agents points out. “It said ‘ _ help’!  _ I’m not crazy. You guys heard that, right!?” 

“We should focus,” Reinhardt urges. “If a gorilla from space tells us it needs help, we are obligated to assist as soon as possible!”  

“I was thinking the same thing, Lieutenant. We can sort out  _ where it came from  _ and  _ what it’s doing here  _ once it’s safe.” Ana’s eyes sweep over the assembled agents. “I want you to split into two crews- one of you salvage the crashed pod, the other bring the monkey back to base.” 

“Gorilla,” One of the agents points out.

“What?” Ana says.

“Gorilla. It’s a gorilla. It doesn’t have a tail.” The agent explains, awkwardly.

“Does it really  _ matter?”  _ Another agent snaps. “It can talk!” 

“I just think the distinction is important-” 

Reinhardt drops his shield. He carefully trudges through the torn earth, kneeling beside the fallen space capsule. He lowers his arms, gingerly cradling the gorilla.

“Don’t shift it around too much,” Ana warns. “It could have a spinal injury.” 

“I will try not to, Ana,” He promises. He hefts, bringing the ape upward, his brows wrinkling under the strain. Reinhardt can’t maintain his lifting posture for long and he shifts, attempting to balance the ape’s weight across his muscular arms and his abdomen. “ _ Oughhh.  _ It’s… Heavy. Very heavy.” 

“The average adult gorilla weighs nearly four hundred pounds,” The agent who’d specified the extraterrestrial primate was a gorilla and not a monkey helpfully provides. “Plus, he’s armored-” 

Reinhardt takes a slow, shaky step away from the capsule. “In some form of  _ space suit,  _ I notice. _ ”  _

“The last mission to space was back in the ‘30s,” Ana says. “I… I didn’t want to say it, but do you think this gorilla could be from Horizon?” 

“The moon colony?” Reinhardt asks. 

“We lost contact with Horizon  _ decades  _ ago,” one agent points out. “We have no idea what could’ve happened since then! What if they’ve got a bunch of proto-people-apes up there running stuff? Like a monkey moon society?” 

“Gorilla,” The gorilla-knowledgeable agent murmurs. 

“Who cares!? We might’ve caught a space-gorilla from Horizon Lunar Colony!” 

“If it’s being run by gorillas, what happened to all the humans?” Another agent challenges. 

“Please  _ focus,  _ people!” Ana orders. “I  _ said  _ I wanted teams collecting that pod! Keep the chatter down and get to it!” 

The agents flusteredly scurry to work; a few break from the main group to journey with Reinhardt and Ana back to Gibraltar for equipment to move the pod. One of the more medically-minded agents tries to do a cursory examination of the gorilla, but she maintains that she’s “not a vet” and she doesn’t “exactly know gorilla biology”. The rest of the accompanying agents restlessly chitter amongst themselves, in fluttering voices that pitch treble and bass with curiosity and worry. 

“What do you think of all of this, Reinhardt?” Ana questions.

“I am hesitant to cast judgement until we awaken our distressed damsel,” Reinhardt confides. “Was he asking for  _ help  _ because he was running away from his home? Was he asking for help because someone was chasing him? Was he asking for help because he was  _ hurt?”  _

“We don’t know,” Ana admits.

“And until we do, I will reserve my judgement,” Reinhardt says, his voice firm. 

The walk back to Gibraltar is slow due to the weight Reinhardt has to carry; but nevertheless, they arrive. The gorilla is ushered into the medical bay; a relatively small, blanche space with five patient beds, an office, and only two equipped operating rooms. The primate is dropped on a table it doesn't entirely fit on- two have to be put together to accommodate its bulk. 

Reinhardt huffs and puffs, hand against the wall for support, while a doctor and the attending medic attempt to extricate the gorilla from its suit. They have to take it apart, delicately sectioning away pieces with thin blades, in order to fully remove it.

“His unconsciousness doesn't appear to be due to trauma,” The doctor’s words are more hesitant than his hands, which remove armored pieces with professional smoothness. This is not the first time he’s operated on an agent whose armor couldn't be traditionally removed. “But I can't really determine a concrete cause. At this point, I'm just hoping human physiology and gorilla physiology are close enough for me to treat  _ anything.”  _

While examining the newly bared gorilla, they find minor lacerations and moderate bruising. The landing had been bad, but but the gorilla had managed to get through it without breaking any bones. Nevertheless, biotic fluid is administered; through a respirator rather than through the blood, since the doctors say there's absolutely no way they could safely pierce a gorilla’s vein, even if it did share the same circulatory structure as a human. The fur made it impossible, they claimed. 

=

Jack Morrison pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Moon gorillas.” He says, disbelievingly. “ _ Moon gorillas.”  _

“I’m trying to think of a monkey pun,” Gabriel says thoughtfully, stroking his beard. “ _ Monkeying  _ around.” 

“This is bad,” Jack steps away from the holo-projector, starting to pace. 

“Hey. C’mon-” Gabriel grabs his shoulder, soothingly sliding his hand down Jack’s inner arm. “We don’t even know this has to do with Horizon.” 

“Do you know where else a space gorilla could’ve come from?” Jack turns to face him. 

“We don’t  _ know _ it’s from space.” 

“Ana said it was wearing a space suit,” Jack sighs. “ _ Jesus,  _ I did  _ not  _ need this right now.” 

“... Yeah,” Gabriel agrees. “Figuring out how to approach this is going to be… Weird.”

Horizon Lunar Colony had been established on Earth’s moon in 2034, with an ambitious project that’d been a decade in the making. It was  _ intended  _ to be an extraterrestrial testing ground studying the effects of space inhabitation, on both apes  _ and  _ humans, but over the years, what it actually  _ accomplished _ grew murky.

The Omnic Crisis, beginning in the early forties, had taken all the interest from the project- and after nearly a decade of grueling war, communication with the moon base had been abruptly and completely lost. There were never concerned efforts to rekindle contact, with all resources and minds consumed by the potential human extermination on Earth. 

Once all the ash from the Omnic Crisis had settled, the moon base was mentioned in passing- as a “ _ remember when”  _ conversation starter, followed with a vague “ _ ohh yeah”  _ and a gradual switch to another topic _ ;  _ to most, the loss of Horizon Lunar Colony was like that of the fate of the U.S.S. Maine- unfortunate and  forgettable. 

“There’s no precedent for this,” Jack folds his arms. 

“Well, let’s take comfort in the fact that we’re gonna set one.” Gabriel offers. 

Jack sighs. Walks back to the holo-screen.

“Call Ana back, BETSY.” 

=

The gorilla wakes up with a coughing, shaking wheeze- he ( they’d learned it was he after all the armor removal ) clutches his stomach and retches, and one of the doctors hurries to jerk the respirator off him before he pukes into it. He doesn’t, but he does sit up, gagging on nothing and frantically blinking.

“Glasses,” He says, “Can’t see-” 

The two attending medics exchange incredulous glances-  _ that gorilla is talking-  _ and Ana actually moves to do something, grabbing the spectacles and putting them on the gorilla’s flattened nose. He straightens them, carefully, and peers out at them all.

“Did I do it?” He asks, hoarsely. “Is this… Overwatch?” 

“You’ve landed at Watchpoint: Gibraltar,” Ana confirms. She toys between asking  _ who  _ or asking  _ what  _ he is. “Who are you?” 

“My name is-” There’s a beat of hesitation on his face. “I want to be called Winston.” 

“ _ Want  _ to be?” Ana asks. 

“Yes,” He confirms, unwilling to elaborate. “Winston. I came from Horizon Lunar Colony, and I-”  He stops, expression dropping into something pained, grieving. “- I would appreciate, um, something to drink... and then I’ll tell you everything.” 

Reinhardt picks up on the gorilla’s rattled demeanor nigh immediately. “Right! How does a beer sound?” 

Ana throws him a look.

“Ah... On second thought, it is a little early. Perhaps tea?” 

Ana nods in approval. Winston does, too, slumping back on his gurneys.

She has a feeling that he has a hell of a story to tell.  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters should be coming out every Friday from now on- Replacing the Four Horsemen, at least temporarily.

**Author's Note:**

> An old series I discontinued in June. 
> 
> Ah well. Ch 2 will be out next Thursday : )


End file.
